Developmental-affordances - An approach to designing child-friendly environment

A child-friendly environment is a place that provides children with opportunities for their activities, or from the ecological perspective, a rich-affordances environment. However, children’s environments are often designed by adults who may have an insufficient understanding of children’s needs, potentially causing a disconnect between affordances provided and those actualised by children. To address this issue, we posit developmental-affordances as an approach to designing a place for children, which integrates the theoretical perspectives of affordances and child development. Affordance theory indicates that an environment affords people with opportunities for action, and emphasises the relative functions of the environment according to the perceiver’s capabilities to respond to those opportunities. However, affordances can be more effective for designing a child-friendly place if it is informed by an understanding of the developmental stages. This knowledge will illuminate designers with ideas for environmental features and activities that naturally attract children as the configuration of affordances are actualised to support their development. Moreover, as child development takes place within a specific context, designers should also note the influence of social and physical properties of an environment that might support and thwart children’s motivation to actualise the potential affordances.